Metropolis selected Boston as one of the best design cities in the world, highlighting MIT's School of Architecture and Planning and the Fab Lab as key drivers of the city’s success. “Here in Boston our biotech and high-tech industries are offering designers incredible opportunities to express their creativity,” says Hashim Sarkis, dean of SA+P. “It’s a place where design is being pushed to new frontiers.”
CNN Greece highlights the "Maker Summer School," a weeklong workshop for unaccompanied refugees in Athens developed by researchers from the MIT D-Lab. The article, which is in Greek, explores how participants spent six days learning the design process by making real products they can use in their daily lives.
A study co-authored by MIT researchers shows that the moon’s magnetic field could have lasted for as long as two billion years, according to Xinhua. “The researchers are planning to analyze more lunar rocks to determine when the dynamo died off completely.”
MIT researchers have found that the moon’s magnetic field lasted at least 1 billion years longer than initially thought, reports Charles Q. Choi for NBC News. “Understanding more about the nature of the magnetic field of Earth's moon could shed light on the magnetic fields of distant moons and planets, which could influence their habitability."
By examining a lunar rock from the Apollo 15 mission, researchers from MIT and Rutgers University have found that the moon had a magnetic field for at least one billion years longer than initially thought, reports Nicola Davis for The Guardian. The researchers found that the, “lunar dynamo was still going until somewhere between one billion and 2.5bn years ago.”
CBS Boston highlights a new study by MIT researchers that shows that blocking the HDAC2 enzyme could one day help restore memories in Alzheimer’s patients. Postdoctoral fellow Jay Penney explains that, “What we’ve done is found a new way to basically prevent this negative effect of this enzyme.”
Boston Globe reporter Martin Finucane writes that a new study co-authored by MIT researchers provides evidence that the moon’s magnetic field lasted 1 billion years longer than previously thought. “Researchers now believe the moon’s magnetic field existed for a total of at least 2 billion years,” Finucane explains.
During this NECN segment, Boston Business Journal reporter Kelly O’Brien discusses the new wireless sleep detection device developed by CSAIL researchers. The algorithm developed by the research team can translate radio waves emitted by the device “into usable information about where a person is in their sleep cycle,” explains O’Brien.
MIT researchers have found that blocking the HDAC2 enzyme could potentially restore the memories of Alzheimer’s patients, reports Alyssa Meyers for The Boston Globe. The researchers, “pinpointed a gene called Sp3 that binds with HDAC2, which then results in the compression and subsequent deactivation of memory genes.”
Boston Magazine reporter Jamie Ducharme writes that MIT researchers have found that blocking the HDAC2 enzyme may potentially reverse memory loss in Alzheimer’s patients. The researchers, “blocked HDAC2 activity by preventing it from binding with Sp3, a protein coding gene that the team found to be a crucial part of genetic blockade formation.”
TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater spotlights a new device developed by MIT researchers that can wirelessly monitor sleep. “Thanks to new AI technology, the system is now able to translate subtle movement into meaningful information about the subject’s sleep patterns, including sleep stages (light/deep/R.E.M.), movement and breathing rate."
An algorithm developed by Prof. Iyad Rahwan and graduate student Bjarke Felbo has been trained to detect sarcasm in tweets that use emojis, writes Josh Lowe for Newsweek. After reading over 1 billion tweets with emojis, the algorithm predicted, “which emoji would be associated with a given tweet based on its emotional tone,” explains Lowe.
Wall Street Journal reporter Alexander Davis writes that MIT researchers have found venture capitalists would have better exit success rates if they relied more on mathematical models to build their portfolios. The study examined the, “exit probabilities among thousands of startups since 2000 seems to bolster the argument for letting quantitative analytics drive more of the venture industry.”
MIT researchers have developed a new device that can track sleep patterns using radio waves, reports Alyssa Meyers for The Boston Globe. The researchers plan to “use the device to study how Parkinson’s disease affects sleep,” Meyers explains, adding that it could also be helpful with, “studying Alzheimer’s disease, insomnia, sleep apnea, and epilepsy.”
Wired reporter Liz Stinson writes that researchers from MIT and Google have developed a new algorithm that can automatically retouch images on a mobile phone. “The neural network identifies exactly how to make it look better—increase contrast a smidge, tone down brightness, whatever—and apply the changes in under 20 milliseconds,” Stinson explains.